The problem with replacing Fleury is, who are you realistically going to bring in and replace him with that is a guaranteed upgrade.....NOBODY!! Look at the last 3-5 years of playoff stats, and look at the the top 5-7 goalies each year in GAA and Save% in the playoffs. It's different guys every year. There is nobody out there that is going to come in and be a surefire, playoff goalie stud. Best bets would be Lundqvist, Crawford, Howard, or Quick, and I doubt the Pens are going to be able to get any one of those guys. If Fleury has a bad regular season this year, I think the Pens start looking elsewhere. Ideally, you would like to seem them get a solid veteran who is traditionally solid in the playoffs while they have the Crosby/Malkin/Letang core together, but again, easier said then done.

You aren't goign to go out and get someone who has proven to be a great playoff goalie. If you're going after someone, you're going after someone young that you think can handle quickly growing into it.

meow wrote:So what other options are there? I've heard Ryan Miller, which is a lateral move at best. What about Victor Fast? Heck, even Tim Thomas might be lured out of Florida at the deadline. Moving goalies isn't exactly the easiest thing from a GM's perspective.

It's not what other options are there it's what other options were there. Namely Bernier and Schnieder were available.

meow wrote:So what other options are there? I've heard Ryan Miller, which is a lateral move at best. What about Victor Fast? Heck, even Tim Thomas might be lured out of Florida at the deadline. Moving goalies isn't exactly the easiest thing from a GM's perspective.

It's not what other options are there it's what other options were there. Namely Bernier and Schnieder were available.

Might've been hard for the Pens to compete with the 9th overall pick New Jersey sent to Vancouver for Schneider or the package Toronto sent LA for Bernier (Scrivens + Frattin + 2nd round pick).

In other news, Thomas is ready to sign with Florida as soon as ownership gives him an offer. Makes sense since it's a team that he can step in and take right over starting duties on.

If we are to believe that management is concerned about Fleury's play and that he is a primary problem for playoff woes, why haven't they done anything to help offset his liability? The only roster addition was Scuderi. So personnel wise, we are slightly better on D, but worse on offense in terms of responsible forwards. Why have there been no apparent (from what preseason action I've seen) changes to the system to help insulate MAF?

Either they aren't as critical of him within the ranks or we have the worst GM/coach in hockey who are intentionally parading out a situation that is guaranteed to fail. It just seems like common sense that if they think MAF is going to be a major issue, they would have made some kind of significant change to reduce the chance of him screwing it up for everyone.

I personally think the same as most of you... Fleury needs to prove he can play better. No more benefit of the doubt. But this whole situation is weird where he is literally the ONLY guy (player/coach/GM) getting criticism for their failures from within yet they do nothing about it. I have no theory and I won't belabor on that my personal opinion is DB is an idiot and can't figure out how to insulate a goalie on D. I'm just pointing out how odd this whole Fleury situation is.

1B. How do you replace him/Who do you replace him with, if you can get rid of him?

2. If you can't get rid of him, who do you replace him with inside the organization (because the cap and prospect/draft pick situation doesn't allow for adding the majority of available goalies)? Vokoun can't be counted on to play more than 30-40 games (and he'll play even less due to this blood clot thing).

I think you're making this a black and white issue ("either they aren't as critical of him within the ranks or we have the worst GM/coach in hockey") when it is one with many variables to consider and many options to also consider, from maintaining status quo to putting him on watch/short leash to actively shopping him to see if there were any takers to something we may not even be considering.

I would like to think that the most likely explanation is that Shero looked at every possible option (save a buyout), and keeping Fleury around, getting him help, and seeing how he progressed was the one that made the most sense.

I think you are going the wrong way... I'm going with the assumption they couldn't replace HIM. But with that being the case, they haven't made any adjustments knowing that he's there whether they like it or not. So something is weird. If they know they have him, shouldn't they do something to help mitigate what he could potentially cost the team? That's common sense, right? If you go in knowing you had a rookie goalie, you'd insulate him. you wouldn't play high risk, end to end hockey. So if we know Fleury has struggled for 4 years in the current system, why haven't they (from what I've seen) changed the system? Why didn't they bulk up on defensive forwards for the bottom 6?

You mean firing Meloche and hiring Mike Bales as well as a sports psychologist wasn't an adjustment to perhaps get Fleury (apologize for the cliche) back on his game?

They've made plenty of adjustments in order to make the team (and by product, the defense) better. I'm not saying Fleury's going to be magicaly cured and will win the Vezina, but you've pretty much ignored a large chunk of the team's moves during the offseason and the preseason focused on not only making Fleury but the team as a whole better.

And, FWIW, that's a 1-3-1 on the Letang breakaway goal in the Chicago game (video in the link).